= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
SilasBarta comments on Rationality Quotes: February 2010 - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (322)
Right, I've explained before why your arguments are in error. We can talk more about that some other time.
No, I accept that they're separate errors.
Okay:
If what you describe here is what you mean by both "the natural numbers" and "the actual standard model of the natural numbers", then I will accept this definition for the purposes of argument, but that, using it consistently, it doesn't have the properties you claim.
Disagree with this. Dawkins has been referring to existing complexity in the universe and the context of every related statement confirms this. But even accepting it, the rest of your argument still doesn't follow.
Disagree. Again, let's keep the same definition throughout. Recall what you said the natural numbers were:
The model arose from something simpler (like basic human cognition of counting of objects). The Map Is Not The Territory.
Ah, but now I know what you're going to say: you meant the sort of Platonic-space model of those natural numbers, that exists independently of whatever's in our universe, has always been complex.
So, if you assume (like theists) that there's some sort of really-existing realm, outside of the universe, that always has been, and is complex, then you can prove that ... there's a complexity that has always existed. Which is circular.
Silas: I agree that if arithmetic is a human invention, then my counterexample goes away.
If I've read you correctly, you believe that arithmetic is a human invention, and therefore reject the counterexample.
On that reading, a key locus of our disagreement is whether arithmetic is a human invention. I think the answer is clearly no, for reasons I've written about so extensively that I'd rather not rehash them here.
I'm not sure, though, that I've read you correctly, because you occasionally say things like "The Map Is Not The Territory" which seems to presuppose some sort of platonic Territory. But maybe I just don't understand what you meant by this phrase.
[Incidentally, it occurs to me that perhaps you are misreading my use of the word "model". I am using this word in the technical sense that it's used by logicians, not in any of its everyday senses.]
Map and territory
More: Map and Territory (sequence)
Then you agree that your "counterexample" amounts to an assumption. If a Platonic realm exists (in some appropriate sense), and if Dawkins was haphazardly including that sense in the universe he is talking about when he describes complexity arising, then he wrong that complexity always comes from simplicity.
If you assume Dawkins is wrong, he's wrong. Was that supposed to be insightful?
It's a false dispute, though. When you clarify the substance of what these terms mean, there are meanings for which we agree, and meanings for which we don't. The only error is to refuse to "cash out" the meaning of "arithmetic" into well-defined predictions, but instead keep it boxed up into one ambiguous term, which you do here, and which you did for complexity. (And it's kind of strange to speak for hundreds of pages about complexity, and then claim insights on it, without stating your definition anywhere.)
One way we'd agree, for example, is if we take your statements about the Platonic realm to be counterfactual claims about phenomena isomorphic to certain mathematic formalisms (as I said at the beginning of the thread).
The definitions aren't incredibly different, which is why we have the same term for both of them. If you spell out that definition more explicitly, the same problems arise, or different ones will pop up.
(By the way, this doesn't surprise me. This is the fourth time you've had to define a term within a definition you gave in order to avoid being wrong. It doesn't mean you changed that "subdefinition". But genuine insights about the world don't look this contorted, where you have to keep saying, "No, I really meant this when I was saying what I meant by that.")
Silas: This is really quite frustrating. I keep telling you exactly what I mean by arithmetic (the standard model of the natural numbers); I keep using the word to mean this and only this, and you keep claiming that my use of the word is either ambiguous or inconsistent. It makes it hard to imagine that you're actually reading before you're responding, and it makes it very difficult to carry on a dialogue. So for that reason, I think I'll stop here.
When I saw this in the comment feed, I thought "Wow, Steve Landsburg on Less Wrong!" Then I saw that he was basically just arguing with one person.
While I think you're not correct in this debate, I hope you'll continue to post here. Your books have been a source of much entertainment and joy for me.
Bo102010: Thanks for the kind words. I'm not sure what the community standards are here, but I hope its not inappopriate to mention that I post to my own blog almost every weekday, and of course I'll be glad to have you visit.
Are you reading my replies? Saying that arithmetic is "the standard model of the natural numbers" does not
For one thing, it doesn't give me predictions (i.e. constraints on expectations) that we check to see who's right.
For another, it's not well-defined -- it doesn't tell me how I would know (as is necessary for the area of dispute) if arithmetic "exists" at this or that time. (And, of course, as you found out, it requires further specification of what counts as a model...)
(ETA: See Eliezer_Yudkowsky's great posts on how to dissolve a question and get beyond there being One Right Answer to e.g. the vague question about a tree falling in the forest when no one's around.)
So if you don't see how that doesn't count as cashing out the term and identifying the real disagreement, then I agree further discussion is pointless.
But truth be told, you're not going to "stop there". You going to continue on, promoting your "deep" insights, wherever you can, to people who don't know any better, instead of doing the real epistemic labor achieving insights on the world.